How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wall

“Drive Sober or get pulled over” the gigantic sign said. “Why,” I cried out, raising my fist in defiance. “Those are not the only two choices. Why can’t it be both?” My shouted protest reverberated off the sparkling orange diodes into the dark silence of the Providence night. My own car has been pulled over while I was sober so many times, it might as well have a donut-flavored target plastered on the rear bumper. As I randomly quibbled with the well-intentioned sign, I realized that my protest against its phrasing was a perfect analogy to the current political climate.

It’s a perfect analogy because neither one makes the slightest bit of sense. As I chewed on that, I flashed back to a recent moment of trauma when Bill Nye used the phrase “Fake Facts,” while asking supermodel Karli Kloss to explain global warming (which she expertly did). Well, that’s not quite what happened, but it’s existentially close (let’s not let factuality get in the way of this story (read headline above). Fake facts and Bill Nye should never, ever be used in the same sentence. Shame on you, Science Guy.

Thinking about what science and fake facts might have in common led our Alternative Facts team to uncover a plan that will allow Trump to get his hugely unpopular passion project (and builder’s/construction person’s wet dream), the Great Wall of Mexico, to actually happen.

We don’t need a wall, of course. In fact, for the past several years, more illegals are moving south over the border than north – nothing motivates migration quite like a lousy economy (source: ). But we do need more green energy projects, and building things is a time-tested economic salve going back to Egyptian times.

So why not kill two birds with one stone? Convert the wall into a giant set of solar energy collectors. Its proposed location wouldn’t interfere with anything else – and it’s mostly in warm, sunny territory. Covering the wall with efficient solar panels, and punctuating it with wind turbines instead of towers, would turn the project into a much-needed clean energy project: a model for other nations. And Trump could get thoroughly behind it because he’d still be getting his wall. Tell him the power is for electric fences or something, then reroute it where it can be put to real use.

You could even add power-generator-connected treadmills and bicycles. If someone wanted to immigrate, they’d just have to generate a certain amount of power to sponsor their entry. They’d be giving back, and earning entry to the states at the same time (see “Black Mirror,” season 1, episode 2 for an example of how well this can work in a dystopian future).

And now, we interrupt this missive to share a direct report from the President’s new Director of the FBI: